Ossessione

A truck pulls up in front of a trattoria, or restaurant. Bregana, chubby, middle-aged, jovial, owns the trattoria, and is married to Giovanna (Clara Calamai), young, attractive, and profoundly unhappy. She has married out of desperation. When Bregana goes out to greet the truck driver, they find a drifter sleeping in the bed of the truck. Gino (Massimo Girotti) is young, handsome, well-built, and when he walks into the diner and encounters Giovanna for the first time her desire for him is undeniable. He sees it in her eyes, her face, and immediately they're together, despite her husband, her marriage. She tries running away with him, but fearing an uncertain future she returns to the domestic comfort of her home, her husband. Gino leaves, becomes friends with Spagnuolo, a street vendor, and their partnership is fine until he again encounters Bregana and Giovanna on the streets of the city. This time the bond is set, and when the three of them drive home together the two lovers commandeer the death of her husband, making it look like a road accident. But still, even with Bregana gone, happiness eludes them. Gino is haunted by guilt, morose, but Giovanna, while distressed, is unremorseful. He leaves her again, and not long after she spots him in the company of a young prostitute. Here we see the two of them not long after she confronts him about the other woman, and she tells him of her pregnancy, the child of which he is the father.